A. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to an optical network architecture, and more specifically to a split redundant trunk architecture that uses passive splitters and path switching, which provides for fiber cut protection and equipment failure protection.
B. Description of the Related Art
For underwater optical networks, a problem exists in shallow waters due to dragging boat anchors and the like, which may make contact with fiber optic lines and thereby cause damage or cuts to those lines. This problem also may occur for land-laid optical networks, whereby certain portions of fiber optic cable laid below ground are more susceptible to damage than other portions of the fiber optic cable. For example, if a fiber optic cable is provided between Baltimore, Md. and New York, N.Y., then there is a higher probability of damage to the fiber optic cable located at the two cities, due to building and road construction and repair, than along locations between the cities in which the fiber optic cable is laid.
Presently, fiber optic systems use one of two schemes that incorporate path diversity in regions where there is a high probability of fiber cut. In one scheme, fiber bundle legs are split at branch units and half of the fibers are routed along two different paths. In the other scheme, each wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) fiber is split/combined at the branch units by wavelength using wavelength splitters and combiners. In either case, half of the bandwidth is routed over two separate diverse paths. If one of the two fiber bundles is cut in the region where there is a high probability of fiber cuts, half of the total bandwidth is lost in the region where there is a low probability of fiber cuts. Accordingly, there is a need for a fiber optic system using a branch unit to route entire fiber bundles diversely, to avoid losing half of the bandwidth when one or more of the fiber bundles is damaged in the region where there is a high probability of fiber cuts.
Typically, conventional optical communication systems comprise a receiving node and a transmitting node (Baltimore, Md. and New York, N.Y. in the aforementioned example) connected via optical fiber. Each node contains equipment for communication via optical fiber. Such equipment includes channel equipment and WDM equipment. A fiber-bay comprises channel equipment and WDM equipment. Channel equipment is equipment that transmits and receives via a specific channel. A line unit is a repeater that optically amplifies WDM signals on an optical fiber.